Local search is a safe haven against the Google “Brand” update – Andrew Shotland’s brilliant analysis of what Google’s Feburary update (which many SEO’s believe is skewed to favor large, trusted brands) means for small businesses. Essentially, in my view, it boils down to getting your business information out there as consistently as possible on as many portals as possible, link or no link. The “Brand” update could be great news for SMB’s (particularly when combined with the announcement above).

David Westbrook of Dew Point Productions (right here in Portland!) followed up with this post in which he asks the sensible question: why not just ban the offending domains from appearing in Google Maps, system-wide?

On a more serious note, MapsGuideJoel offered some valuable advice — in the event of duplicate or incorrect LBC listings, it’s in your best interest to claim ALL of them in your LBC account. If the impressions/views of both listings are equal within your LBC account, leave the situation as is–Google has successfully combined them within Maps. If they differ, you’ll want to suspend the listing with the fewest impressions. (Mike, did I get that right?)

And without any segue, but just because it was such a great post, Matt McGee answered a reader’s question about how he does Local Keyword Research a couple weeks back. Not surprisingly, my Local Keyword Research process looks almost identical but it’s nice to see validation of that process from one of the true experts in the field. I find that the “pretend you’re in a larger city” usually works pretty well…although the absolute best KW research comes from a PPC campaign and analytics 🙂 I’m skeptical of any non-Google Keyword Tool for Local data, though.

And if you think there aren’t enough links here, stay tuned…something tells me there will be two more Links of Local Interest published later this week…

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Well, if you read the caveat that Joel of Google posted at the bottom after he reviewed his advice it was: The only time you want to remove the listing from Maps is when the business is permanently closed OR you never want it to appear on Maps.

I’d like to start seeing people comment on traffic impact since generic industry phrases started being accompanied by a maps insert w/ local businesses. I have some data for Feb and March….its great…so long as you have high rankings in the 10 pacs.

I too got a lot out of the thread about doing research when keyword tools don’t give data on local phrases, from Matt’s blog. My methodology is similar.

As to mapspam…its significantly wider than that which is reported by Mike. I was reviewing some topics and cities……OMG. So much repetition, so much spammyness.

Initially I would have voted (if someone gave me a vote) to just remove the offending locksmiths. I suppose and would hope that google is using the information to develop better mapspam tools in the future.

oh….and btw…saw something that reminded me of you david…..its called rinkotology. Geez…everyone wants to get in the game. 😀